There's no online play, use of the camera is minimal, the only things you unlock are extra difficulty levels for the mini-games that already exist, and it just feels a little bare. Maybe wait until it drops to the £15 mark, then by all means give it a whirl.

The end fight where you have to plug every single enemy and boss before facing the unfairly tough villain is the stuff of legends...Co-op play is essential if you want to finish the game. [Feb 2007, p.100]

It's so much easier to forgive glitches, outdated visuals and flick-book framerate when you've got a friend laughing at them too, but this doesn't mean we should forgive them. Should Riptide wash up on your shore, you'd best throw in back in.

Critical flaws in every major respect, then, and yet it just about hangs together. There's an affecting moodiness to it, a real satisfaction when you do chain together several silent kills, and the low-tech 1940s setting lends a refreshing purity to the sneak 'em up genre. With a little more polish, further adventures for Violette could well be to die for.

This is never going to be the game that sets the world alight or is a critical success - but it is far from a cheap cash in like many party games, and might just prove the right direction for Rare's misjudged franchise.